The combination of PET imaging and x-ray computed tomography (CT) imaging in integrated PET/CT or PET-CT medical imaging systems provide more precisely aligning or correlating the functional imaging obtained by PET with anatomic imaging obtained by CT scanning. However, such integrated PET/CT medical imaging systems require the additional CT scanning hardware to be integrated with the PET imaging hardware. Thus, it would be useful if a transmission type scan data can be obtained using a PET scanner without the additional transmission scanning hardware such as a CT scanner.
General information about PET imaging may be found in U.S. Pat. No. 7,848,559 to Defrise et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 7,876,941 to Panin et al., both of which are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.